


as long as I am with you, my heart continues to beat

by thimbleoflight



Category: Mystery Skulls (Band)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-23 10:19:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2543978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimbleoflight/pseuds/thimbleoflight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, Arthur screwed up. Their friendship failed. Insecurity got the better of him, shyness didn't help anything. The three of them shouldn't have gotten a second chance, but they did. (Even if that second-chance was as a half-possessed cyborg, a skeleton monster, and a newly-gifted Seer.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Rather Be" by Clean Bandit.
> 
> There will be a second chapter about the adventures of post-Ghosts monster triad of investigators and their weird dog. I just wanted to get this out today because, hey, this is my pet ship, and I can't stop thinking about it.

The ad in the paper said: _Help wanted, investigative services, must like dogs_.

It said nothing about ghosts, or vampires, or zombies, or werewolves, or the fact that the dog in question was actually a kitsune, but as it turned out, that was what they were investigating. And also? He discovered a couple things about himself. He was actually… kind of good at investigating.

Vivi was the leader, and Lewis was the brains, but Arthur, as it turned out, thought well on his feet and he didn’t hesitate when he needed to rush in to save someone, even if he was a little nervous at the thought of having to do so. In the moment, though, he was impulsive, and the rush of the win made it all worth it, and collapsing in the van in a heap with the two of them after a good chase made for some of the happiest moments he’d ever had in his entire life.

The two of them guided him through learning the process of investigation.

He replayed the tapes from every investigation afterwards—they all did, but they did it alone, and Arthur didn’t know what they thought of it. If they’d asked, he’d have said that he did it to study.

Which was, well, _technically_ true.

He liked the way that the camera captured the shapes of Vivi and Lewis, when they were in view, though onscreen it was mostly Vivi and himself, because Lewis was normally the one holding the camera.

Arthur liked this too, though, because it meant that Lewis’s deep and rumbly voice was behind the camera, near enough that the camera picked it up very well, and Vivi’s smile and bouncy way of walking through _literal haunted mansions_ were both preserved forever, the things he remembered the most of the two of them.

* * *

There was one time where the camera zoomed up close on his own face, and he remembered it well. He clipped it carefully out of the footage, and saved it to his computer. 

In the footage, he’d just triggered a trap in the mansion they were investigating, and narrowly dodged it.

“Arthur!” came two panicked voices in unison, one deep and coming from behind the camera, and the other high-pitched, and coming from the left.

Then the camera jerked forwards, coming to rest somewhere around the lapel of his orange vest, and the view went dark as the two of them pressed into his sides.

Mystery barked.

They smelled the same—a natural consequence of the fact that the two of them practically lived in each others’ pockets. That wasn’t on camera, of course, but it was the visceral memory he had of the moment.

“Thought you were a goner, man,” said Lewis.

“No worries, guys,” came Arthur’s too-high voice. (God, he hated how he sounded on this thing.)

“Good.” This was in Vivi’s clipped tones. She was the steady heartbeat of their investigations, pushing them forwards toward the goal when Lewis or Arthur would have been distracted. “Watch the traps the next time. Lewis, tell him how they’re triggered again, please!”

“Diamond squares on the floor,” said Lewis.

“Thank you.”

“All right, all right,” said Arthur. “I’ll keep watch.”

“Hang on,” said Lewis. The camera catches his hand reaching up to the lapel of Arthur’s vest, and Arthur remembered how his breath caught. Lewis’s hand, onscreen, smoothed out the lapel. “That’s a hell of an orange color. Did I ever tell you I like it? Like Vivi’s hair. Makes it easy to see you.”

Watching it, he remembered how he thought—he thought maybe, for a moment—but then Lewis backed off, and the moment disappeared. Onscreen, Arthur’s torso came back into view.

(The camera didn’t pick up on his blush, which… was good.)

* * *

 

Then, the cave. They should have known better. It wasn’t the first time they’d ever faced a thing like that.

And yet, he’d had a long week. The two of them had been cuddling, and he’d accidentally walked in on it, and—embarrassed, walked out, but couldn’t get the image out of his head.

_You can’t have both_ , the voice whispered, _and you’ll never get either so long as the other is alive. Make your choice, Arthur. Do it now_.

And Arthur chose.

Mystery snarled, changing, but was too late, and then there was a horrible scream and blinding pain and Arthur woke up two days later in a hospital, Vivi at his side, hollow-eyed and surrounded by tissues.

Her hair didn’t look as bright as it usually did, underneath the hospital’s halogen lights.

“Oh, Arthur,” she sobbed, and flung herself onto him. “They had to—I’m so sorry.”

His arm was cold. He reached down to pull the blankets up over it, and—oh.

He didn’t have an arm.

“They can give you a prosthetic,” she said. “It’ll be very strong, made out of metal.”

“Lewis,” Arthur mumbled.

“Dead,” said Vivi flatly. “Arthur, look, we have to have the same story, so you need to know that I lied to get in here. I told them I was your fiancee. I showed them Lewis’s ring to do it.”

Arthur felt the bile rise in his throat.

“Why the _fuck_ would you do that?”

“ _Language_!” She glared at him. “And I did it because—Arthur, this is very important, look at me—because Lewis wouldn’t want either of us to be alone right now.”

“Of course he wouldn’t,” moaned Arthur.

“I knew you would think I was disrespecting him, and I understand why you think that,” she said, “but you know that Lewis was the most important person in my life, along with you, and I can promise you that we were the most important people in his. There is nothing we can do for him now besides make sure that we both live our lives to the fullest.”

“You sound pretty confident,” said Arthur.

“I’ve been sitting here thinking for a long while,” she said, picking up the tissue box again and fiddling with her purse.

“I loved him,” said Arthur. “Vivi—”

“I know you did,” said Vivi. “He loved you, too.”

Arthur was too afraid to ask _how_ Lewis had loved him, afraid that Vivi meant it in a different way than he had—but now it was out there, and he didn’t want to touch the subject any more.

“I think I need to be alone right now,” he said.

“That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll be back in an hour, to check on you then.”

* * *

 

Vivi was good at mourning, or at least good at acting like she wasn’t really. It made Arthur wonder how many people she’d had to mourn. She kept a happy face on, and she acted just as exuberant around the monsters as usual, and dragged the video camera around, and talked more than usual to make up for the new silences.

He loved her more than ever, and more than ever, he could never tell her.

God, not a day went by that he didn’t regret what he did. They unmasked more old men trying to make a couple bucks, found a real genuine kobold in the Midwest, and a kappa nest up north.

And still Arthur felt he’d kept something from that day, a demon in his heart, a kind of corruption that showed up in the form of selfishness and fear and all of his insecurities and the freaky thing his left eye did whenever he thought about it for too long. He could, perhaps, have tried to tell Vivi how he felt about her—how he’d felt about her and Lewis—but the demon kept him from doing it. Telling her would have meant talking about all of it, and that would have meant the demon would come back—taking over his mind like his insecurities already had.

So he kept his mouth shut and Mystery watched him carefully, keeping an eye on him. He must have known that the demon was still in him. Vivi said it was nice that the dog had taken such a liking to him after what happened to Lewis, but Arthur knew the real reason.

They made a big circle around the country, and after a year or so, found themselves back in the southeast, big tangles of forest surrounding the car.

Too close, for Arthur to feel comfortable.

“It’s all right,” said Vivi, as they walked up to the house. “It’s only in the same area, it doesn’t mean anything.”

So yeah, same old, same old, monsters popping out of locked doorways and portraits that glared.

Arthur took Vivi’s hand, but they fall through the floor. Not the first time it had ever happened, but—

The coffin opened, and the skeleton inside stepped out.

And Arthur saw the orange of Lewis’s heart and almost cried, and of course it was _outside_ his ribs, there was no one in the world like Lewis for putting his heart out there where just about anything could get to it—

Including Arthur.

When the two of them—Vivi, and Lewis—looked at each other again, Arthur felt the demon coming back, a blank fog swirling over his mind, and he would have fought Lewis— _I don’t need you_ , he would have said, _it’s just me and Vivi now, and you’re dead, and you can’t come back_.

And then Vivi jumped in front of him, taking the blast of the purple lightning bolt, and Arthur knew what he had to do.

“It’s Lewis,” he told her, wiping his wet cheeks.

“I know,” she said, and she caught Lewis’s heart and held it until it turned blue.

**_VI…VI_** , croaked the skeleton, voice seeming to come from all around them, crackling in the air like static electricity.

“I still love you,” she said. “And so does Arthur.”

**_ARTHUR KILLED ME._ **

Vivi gasped, quietly, but Arthur nodded.

“I’m so sorry,” Arthur said. “I was possessed—”

**_YOU WANTED TO STEAL HER FROM ME_** , said Lewis, the crackle fading, and voice lowering. It seemed to settle somewhere in the vicinity of his new skeleton-head. **_YOU THOUGHT IT WAS A COMPETITION. YOU NEVER THOUGHT TO ASK US._**

“I know, I know,” moaned Arthur, sinking to his knees. “I was wrong. Lewis, I loved you, too, I loved you both, I’m so sorry—”

**_I FORGIVE YOU_**.

But Lewis didn’t say anything else, just gazed down at him.

“I’d do anything,” Arthur said, “anything at all, to make it up to you both.”

He didn’t know what he expected, actually. Lewis didn’t sweep him up in one of his wonderful bear hugs, he gazed down at him with his new glowing purple eyes. Arthur couldn’t read it, but even the demon, which warped his perception of every interaction lately, couldn’t pick up on anything negative.

Vivi swallowed.

“Can you leave the mansion, Lewis?”

**_I BELIEVE SO. I HAVE BEEN WAITING HERE, FOR YOU_**.

Vivi tackled him in a hug, and Arthur stared up at them.

“Then we’ll go,” she said. “This time, together.”

 


	2. Lewis Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a real chapter. That should come up in a few minutes.

He was thinking of them when he died, of course. Who else would he have thought of?

The worst part was seeing Vivi there, looking at him, hand flying up to cover her mouth. She stared at him, like she couldn’t believe it, and then she screamed, and he thought—he thought he might have been alive then.

And Arthur was gone, and somebody else was screaming, and Mystery was snarling.

_I thought you were my friend_ , Lewis thought, too sad to be angry (that would come later). _I have to tell Vivi—she has to_ know _, she has to_ see _what he did_ —

Dying was a purple light, brighter than anything else, and he reached for Vivi with everything that he had.


	3. sacred simplicity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The newly reconstructed gang takes off together.

The three of them packed into the van, Arthur automatically taking the front seat, Mystery in shotgun, and—Vivi and Lewis in the back.

“Um, I drive the car now,” said Arthur. “Well, like, Vivi and I switch off, but like… I mean. I don't think you wanna drive.”

**_I'll drive some other time, maybe._ **

The not-voice had settled into something that seemed to come from nowhere and also Lewis’s chest at the same time, quieter and gentler than it had been in the mansion. Vivi pressed a hand against Lewis’s chest, leaning into his shoulder. They weren’t exactly unfamiliar with ghost-telepathy, though Lewis seemed to be doing a pretty good job of actually making his sound like his own voice.

Vivi and Arthur jumped as the mansion beside them faded from view.

“Oh, your—”

**_It was for you. I have no need of it any more_**. 

“Arthur,” said Vivi suddenly. “The glove box.”

“Riiiight,” said Arthur, flipping it open. “Your wallet, buddy. We kept it.”

He held it up to Lewis, stretching himself to face the… thing in the backseat. He almost didn’t even feel like he was looking at a face, the purple light from the eye sockets seeming to burn right through him.

Lewis took it, skeleton hands cold when they brushed against Arthur’s. He unfolded it and looked inside.

“Everything’s still in there,” said Vivi. “Oh, um, except—there was a twenty. Sorry. I’ll pay you back.”

**_You can’t possibly think I would worry about something like that_**.

“Well, no, but—I mean, I’m still sorry.”

**_I have no need of it_** , Lewis repeated, and this time his words were slightly obscured by the sensation that they were listening to crackly static. There was a long pause. Lewis glanced up at Arthur, and then back to Vivi, and didn’t say anything more.

Vivi met Arthur’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and he looked back at the road, ashamed.

She had looked—dazed, and he glanced back up again just in time to see her turn back to Lewis, putting a hand up to his skull, whispering quietly to him—but not so quietly that Arthur couldn’t hear.

Lewis held her hand, putting it on the blue beating heart on his suit—and then, for the first time, Arthur saw it was a locket, and when he pressed her hand to it, it opened. Whatever she saw inside made Vivi cover her mouth with her hands, and gasp.

“Lewis,” she murmured. “Oh, Lewis—I missed you so much… I had the most awful dreams. I saw—I didn’t know what I saw.”

She buried her face in his coat, and Lewis tucked the heart back into his suit pocket, and Arthur turned back to the road, disgusted with himself for looking so long.

He drove for a long time, but the tangle of forests seemed to stretch forever. Arthur caught himself no less than three times about to tease Lewis for picking this forest and getting them lost, but couldn’t quite predict if he wouldn’t just get silence in response.

It would never be how it had been, ever again. Arthur would go home. He’d call his mom, and move back in with her. He wasn’t cut out for this shit. And Lewis and Vivi would go on—he tried not to think about how, if it was even possible for them to live anything remotely resembling a normal life, though it wasn’t like they’d been living one before, so it wasn’t like it mattered—they just didn’t need Arthur and all of his insecurities, fucking everything up for them and third-wheeling…

Mystery growled, and Arthur jumped. It cleared the green fog from his mind.

“Hey,” said Arthur, reaching out to pet him. “Good boy. Woke me up, didn’t ya?”

Vivi and Lewis looked at him.

**_Let me try something_** , said Lewis. **_Now that I’m not controlling the mansion any more. Arthur, pull over_**.

“Um, all right, man.”

The highway was deserted, and Arthur parked the car and turned back.

“So, why’d you want me to pu—”

A flash of purple light lit up the back of the car, blinding and burning, and when it faded and Arthur blinked away the blotches from his photobleached retinas, Lewis—as he’d been in life—sat there before them. Arthur’s heart leapt.

“Holy shit,” said Arthur. “Lewis! You can _do_ that?”

Vivi squealed.

“That is so— _cool!_ ”

Lewis smiled at them and ducked his head. He’d been an easy blusher, back when he was human, but that didn’t seem to happen now, Arthur noticed, with a pang.

**_It’s kind of hard_** , said Lewis. **_I don’t think I could keep it up all the time._**

It was weird to hear Lewis while looking at his face, unmoving.

“Oh, no, man,” said Arthur. “Try again.”

Lewis bit his lip.

**_Better?_** , he asked, mouthing the words. That, coupled with the sense of direction that his telepathy seemed to come from…

“Yes, actually, much better,” said Vivi, before Arthur could say the same thing. “How long do you think you can keep it up for? That would be useful for investigations. It’s still a little bit weird, but totally manageable if we need to go out without terrifying the populace.”

**_For a couple hours, from full strength_**.

“Good enough,” said Vivi.

A shudder flickered over Lewis, and with a _pop!,_ he was a skeleton again.

**_I’m exhausted_** , he said, and sank back against the chair, light flickering out in his eyes, but the spirit-hair still held, and his heart dimmed and the beat of it slowed.

“Holy _shit_ ,” said Arthur. “Is he—is he sleeping? Does he do that?”

Vivi waved her hands in front of the eye sockets.

“Yeah, I think so,” she said. “We’ll let him rest… I’ll drive, or we can crash here.”

Arthur snorted.

“Not ‘crash’. Not while we’re in a car… Oh, um, not funny—I…”

Vivi was stonefaced.

Vivi said, under her breath, “We need to talk. I don’t understand.”

Mystery whined, and she reached up and scratched under his chin, leaning forward to tickle his chest. He sniffed at her face, balancing his glasses carefully.

“I had a nightmare,” she said, leaning up on the shotgun armrest. “I had a nightmare that it was you. I thought—I thought it was just a dream. I thought it was whatever happened to me when I saw Lewis—that purple light, I thought it was that. Malevolent energy from the cave. I trust that Lewis’s interpretation wasn’t… _entirely_ accurate?”

Mystery sat up, turned around in a circle, and nudged at Vivi.

Arthur rubbed his eye, unable to look her in the face.

“Something happened in the cave,” said Arthur. “And I—my arm, it turned green, and there was this fog over me… You know the legends about the cave.” Oh god, he could never tell her everything. “And then Mystery ripped off my arm, because whatever it was, it was going to spread.”

Vivi stared at him, face draining of color.

“Months,” she whispered. “It’s been months, Arthur—you’ve been living with that for _months_?”

He nodded.

“Oh, Arthur,” she said, putting a hand up to his cheek. “You were _possessed_. We’ll tell that to Lewis, when he wakes up. I don’t know if he knows. It was so confusing—but he said he forgave you, didn’t he? And it’s okay. Lewis is—well, he’s back, anyway. We’ll make it work, won’t we? And we can all be friends again.” She stroked his cheek with her thumb, and he leaned into the touch, shutting his eyes.

She didn’t _understand_. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that the jealousy was all him, and that it was still there—he couldn’t.

There was a lump in Arthur’s throat, so he nodded, unable to speak, unable to tell her that was never what he wanted in the first place. She patted his cheek again, and drew her hand back.

“How about this—we’ll stay here tonight, in the car,” said Vivi. “You look exhausted, and frankly I don’t want to drive either. I’m sure Lewis won’t mind if you push the seat back.”

Arthur pulled the lever, and the seat creaked back.

“See, didn’t wake him at all,” said Vivi.

“He hasn’t got _ears_ ,” said Arthur.

She snorted, and he could hear her moving around in the back, leaning up against the window and drawing her feet up so that she could almost lay down. The sounds of Mystery’s quiet breathing were soon joined by hers, and Arthur shut his eyes against the moonlight. He ran his hands across the technowards wired into the car door handle, protecting them and hiding them from whatever might have been hiding in the tangle of forests surrounding the car, remembered how he’d thought of Lewis being the one to sit in the drivers’ seat while he soldered them into place, and Vivi next to him, how happy he’d been, how he still had the scar on his right hand from where he’d burned himself—but it had been fine. He’d been doing it for them.

He drifted off to sleep like that.

* * *

 

In the morning, Arthur turned on the radio, and they found a Denny’s in the middle of nowhere to park at and order pancakes. Some wheedling and puppy eyes later, Mystery was allowed to join them in the nearly-empty restaurant, and they set down a bowl of water for him.

There was coffee, which was all Arthur cared about, and he dumped about three packets of sugar into his coffee and drank it black, enjoying the warmth, and avoiding Lewis’s gaze. Lewis had, inexplicably, ordered pancakes as well, looking back at Arthur and Vivi as he’d done so.

**_It’s weird_** , said Lewis, just after they ordered, illusory lips moving and everything, though they were still getting a couple of weird looks. **_I forgot you guys did that_**.

“What?” asked Vivi.

**_Eat_**.

“Oh,” said Arthur. “Ha, ha, what a joker,” he said, for the benefit of the waitress, who had just returned with their pancakes.

“Um,” said the waitress, putting down the plates in front of them, “Let me know if you… need anything…”

“We’re fine, thanks,” said Vivi.

After she left, Vivi reached into her purse.

“So I was thinking,” said Vivi. “There might be a job in the Southwest. Ghost town type thing.”

“Whoa, whoa,” said Arthur. “Don’t you think we’re moving kinda… fast? I mean, what if Lewis doesn’t wanna do it any more?”

“I think we’ll let him be the judge of that on the way, don’t you?” asked Vivi.

Lewis looked back and forth between them, leaning on the table.

It was so… normal. If he let himself forget, it felt so _right_ to be looking across the table at the two of them, Lewis not saying much but leaning into the conversation anyway, Vivi making plans and scrolling through her phone, and Arthur with his hands folded in his lap, looking at the two of them.

Lewis cut his pancakes, and tried to eat one. It went—well, it went _somewhere_. Arthur didn't exactly know where.

_Yeah, yesterday we were in Lewis’s illusion mansion, trying to keep him from killing us_. It should have been absurd. It sounded like a bad dream.

Arthur met Lewis’s eyes, and was overcome with the shame of what he’d done again. He took a sip of his coffee.

“Lewis?” asked Vivi. “Thoughts?”

**_I missed you_** , said Lewis. It was obviously to Vivi, and Arthur felt the pang of it in his heart, felt his eye twitch. **_Yes. I’ll decide on the way._**

“Cool,” said Arthur flatly.

Arthur checked his phone. “It's a voicemail from my mom,” he said.

“Oh, that’s nice,” said Vivi. “We’ll wait here if you want to call her back now.”

“Nah,” said Arthur. “I’ll do it later.”

“Good!” said Vivi. “Then we can leave.”

Arthur left a bigger tip for the waitress, and they took off, driving southwest, through fields of corn.

“So like,” said Arthur, “if the sky is green, that means tornadoes, right?”

The car rumbled beneath them on these roads, which had clearly not been repaved in a very long time, and the corn fields stretched around them. Having grown up in California, Arthur really wasn’t used to this kind of rural thing.

Vivi shrugged. “Um, it can. Not necessarily. Anyway, it’s lovely out right now, so don’t worry.”

“But what if it _gets_ green? We’re in a car. Like that movie.”

“Arthur, don’t worry,” said Vivi. “We’ll find a place to pull over, and I’m sure in a town somebody will be nice enough to direct us to where we go. We can turn on the radio, too, if that’ll help. Get the weather news.”

“I can’t drive with talking.”

Vivi rolled her eyes at him.

“Fine! Fine, turn on the radio. Just keep it low.”

“You used to be fine with people singing.”

“I am fine with singing. Singing’s different.”

Lewis used to sing. Arthur wondered if he still did it—if he even still could. Maybe he could telepathically sing? That would be pretty neat, Arthur thought.

Vivi took a deep breath.

**_Hmm_** , said Lewis. **_Look at the EMF meter, guys_**.

“That’s you,” said Arthur. “You’re making all our equipment go wonky.”

“No, I thought I recalibrated the EMF meter to Lewis-levels,” said Vivi, peering at it. “Yeah. I did. Look. I made a note of it.”

And that was how they ended up stopping in a creepy midwestern corn field in the middle of fucking nowhere to investigate some blips on their EMF screen, shivering in the winds that had picked up.

“Arthur, grab my jacket from the back,” said Vivi, fiddling with Arthur’s EMF meter again.

“It’s not gonna protect you from a tornado,” said Arthur.

Lewis made the weird crackly static-noise that Arthur was starting to associate with what used to be Lewis’s chuckle. Lewis had a lot of new mannerisms, which apparently were associated with not possessing a mostly-physical form. Alone, out here, he took his now-normal skeleton form, pink hair flickering in the wind. Well, whatever was going wrong out here, maybe it would be scared off by Lewis.

“Yeah, and Lewis can’t keep me warm any more, can you, babe?” she said, laughing. “Arthur, stand next to me. Block the wind. If a tornado comes, we’re screwed.”

Arthur’s cheeks heated up, and he couldn’t tell if Lewis was looking at him anymore or not, but he went anyway, watching Vivi fiddle with the equipment until she came up with something—

“The well was poisoned,” she said, flatly, as the EMF meter went wild in her hands. “They died. They died and they are angry.”

“Um,” said Arthur. “That’s not comforting…”

Vivi glanced back up at him.

“What?”

**_The well, Vi_**.

“What well?”

Arthur glanced up at Lewis, who was making as confused a face as a skeleton could make.

“The one you just… talked about,” said Arthur.

“No, I said, I don’t know what the hell’s going on with this equipment.”

**_Perhaps my hearing isn’t working_** , said Lewis nervously. **_Is that a ghost thing? It might be a ghost thing? But I can feel others here… I think she’s right._**

“You heard a weird thing about a well, too, right?” said Arthur. “That was totally not just me.”

“A well?” said Vivi. “There’s one a few miles down the road from here.”

“Um,” said Arthur, “and like, how do you _know_ that?”

She glanced up at the two of them.

“You… don’t?”

“No,” said Arthur.

**_No_**.

“Oh,” said Vivi, faltering. Arthur could count on his hands the number of times he'd seen Vivi thrown off by something. “Just—let’s get back in the car, and go there.”

They herded Mystery back into the car, and Arthur started it up, and took off down the road. The clouds seemed to gather.

**_Better grab the salt_** , said Lewis. **_Feels like a restless spirit or_** —

“Four,” said Vivi.

**_Yes. I was going to say it feels like several others_**.

“Okay,” said Arthur. “Are you just making that up, or what?”

“Look, I don't know,” snapped Vivi. “I just keep saying things. _I don’t know either._ ”

**_If you’re right_** , said Lewis, **_I mean… I don't really think it matters, how you're doing it_**.

Vivi took a deep breath.

“Thanks, Lewis.”

“Sorry,” said Arthur.

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. Your question’s legit.”

Mystery wagged his tail, looking back at Vivi and leaning his head out for ear scratches. Arthur smiled, watching the dog.

“So, now we’ll find out if you're right or not,” said Arthur, giving her a small smile in the rearview mirror. She smiled back.

There was indeed an old well of rotting wood several miles down the road, and the sky wasn’t green but it was growing darker, even though it was early afternoon. Arthur’s hair stood on end, and he reached for Lewis instinctively, like he used to when he was scared during their early missions, but caught himself in time.

He couldn’t do that any more.

Lewis glanced over at him.

**_You look uneasy_**.

“Haha, yeah,” said Arthur. “A little. Yeah.”

**_I heard you_** , said Lewis, and somehow, Arthur knew that Vivi couldn’t hear Lewis. **_I heard you telling her last night that you were possessed when you killed me. Is that true?_**

“Uh, yes,” said Arthur. “I—yeah. I was. And Mystery ripped off my arm.”

It was feeling more and more like a lie every time he said it.

**_Then I owe you an apology_** , said Lewis. **_I shouldn’t have believed what I did. I should’ve known you were my friend, as I was yours. I understand why you didn’t say that in the mansion_**.

“No worries,” said Arthur, but his eyes were burning and his throat hurt, and he wiped his face with the back of his hand.

**_Can you forgive me for hating you all this time?_** asked Lewis, and Arthur’s heart sank.

“I’m just—I’m so glad to see you again.”

Lewis scooped him up in a hug, and Arthur got snot all over the lapels of his suit, skeleton ribs digging into Arthur's stomach—which was a new thing, in a Lewis hug, but not necessarily unwelcome. For a dead skeleton ghost, Lewis was surprisingly warm—but in a way, that made sense, Arthur guessed, because he was probably a being of pure energy, etc., now.

“Oh, that's cute,” said Vivi. “I should take a picture.”

Arthur laughed, a weird, thick snotty crying laugh.

“Stop it! No! No pictures!”

“I will! I absolutely will,” said Vivi, giggling. “And I’ll send it to your _mom_ , if Lewis could look a little more human for a sec.”

Arthur kept protesting, laughing as he did so, and the prairie seemed to be a little bit brighter, if not downright happier. He wasn’t so afraid, not when things were like this between the three of them.

In a moment, Lewis was his old self, and Vivi’s phone camera clicked.

“Got it! Sent.”

She tucked her phone back into her pocket, and turned back to them, opening her mouth.

The sky went dark, and then a purple flash of lightning seemed to emanate from her eyes, and then somebody screamed—Lewis dropped Arthur, and ran to Vivi—and then everyone was screaming, and Arthur couldn’t distinguish his own yells from Lewis’s EMF-frequency shrieks, Mystery snarling, and above it all Vivi’s unending scream.

Four bright points of light surrounded them.

“They’re here!” Vivi shrieked. “Grab the salt—they will _kill_ us! Arthur, the salt!”

Lewis picked up Vivi, dragging her back away from the well, and Arthur grabbed the salt, throwing it in every direction except at Lewis. The sky cleared, and the land slowly lit up again, as whatever it was backed off.

“It’s a vengeance thing,” said Vivi. “They don’t trust anyone who goes near this well—it’s the focus of their hatred, so we have to dismantle it. They’re coming back soon. They won’t leave us.”

“I’ll grab the axe,” said Arthur.

Lewis shook his head.

**_No need_**.

And he blasted the well, which shattered easily under his powers. Vivi dropped to her knees, exhausted.

“They’re gone,” she said. “Not off to some sort of peace, but—well, you know.”

“Ha!” said Arthur. “We did it! Vivi, your new powers are fucking awesome! We wouldn’t have known half the stuff we did without ‘em!”

Vivi shrugged, modestly.

“Personally I don’t like any victory I don’t understand exactly how it happened,” she said. “But. You know. I’ll take it.”

**_You did great, babe_**.

Mystery snuffled into Arthur’s side, wiggling underneath his hands for a scratch behind the ears.

“You did good too, boy!” said Vivi. “Arthur! Take us to the nearest motel, I need a _nap_.”

The nearest motel had only one-bed rooms available. It wasn’t the first time they’d had to crash on one of those, so they stuck their greasy fast food bags on the table and curled up under the covers. Lewis ended up in the middle, with Arthur on his left and Vivi on his right.

“We did so good today,” Vivi murmured again.

“It was an easy case,” mumbled Arthur back.

**_Well, can you imagine if we hadn’t been able to smash the well instantly?_** asked Lewis. **_They would have had time to regroup._**

_We_ , Arthur noted. Like Lewis wasn’t the only one with that power.

Lewis was so warm, and Arthur didn’t have room _not_ to burrow into his side in the bed.

They woke up in the morning, curled around each other.

“Ugh, I wish I could stay in bed forever,” said Vivi. Using Arthur as an elbow rest, she leaned over the two of them to get her glasses off the bedside table. Her hair was mussed. Arthur’d woken up in beds next to the two of them before, and forgotten how much he’d missed it.

Embarrassed, but unable to take his eyes off of the two of them, Arthur rolled over to face them, propping himself up on the pillow. Lewis, wearing his human form, yawned. His hair was messed up, too, and he had that sleepy, red-faced look that he’d always had in the mornings.

“Didn’t know you needed to do that,” said Arthur.

Lewis flickered for a moment.

**_If I’m not paying attention, I can’t do stuff like this. But I don’t want to be… that thing, at least not in moments like this_**.

Arthur rubbed his eyes, and watched Vivi and Lewis look around blearily, and press a kiss to each other’s cheeks. They made no move to push him out of the bed, and ignored him watching them, if they even noticed, but he looked away all the same.

Arthur covered his left eye with his metal hand, rubbing at it.

“God, that’s cold in the mornings,” he said, and Lewis and Vivi laughed. Lewis sat up and stretched, leaning against the backboard and stretching his arms out over it. If Arthur sat up, he’d have been curled up against Lewis.

“Mmm,” she groaned. “Do we have to get up? Arthur, Lewis, I ask you. Do we _have_ to get up?”

Arthur glanced at his phone.

“Shit,” he said. “I have to, anyway. Sorry. D’ya mind if I call my mom?”

Arthur rolled over, and sat up, dialing the phone. Lewis patted his shoulder, and Arthur suddenly wished he could lean over, like Vivi had done, and kiss him on the cheek, and her, too—that they could stay in this bed, the three of them, warm and cozy while the sunlight filtered in from the window…

Things could be like this, though. This was enough. Things could be like they had been before, if Arthur just let them. If he didn’t push for anything else, if they didn’t know what he knew.

_Please leave a message after the tone_ , said a tinny voice in his ear.

“Hey Mom. It’s Arthur. Guess you’re out. I’ll call you back later, just wanted to say, I’m doing fine. It was nice of you to send that package for us. Vivi appreciated it. I know you haven’t met her in person yet, but I hope you can meet her soon. She thought it was real nice, ‘specially the cookies. Maybe we’ll be by your area sometime in the next few months? My, um, other partner in the agency, Lewis, just came back from a, what d’ya call it…”

**_Sabbatical. Try sabbatical._ **

Vivi grinned up at Lewis.

“…A sabbatical, and things are picking up a little round here. Lots of work these days. Anyway. Love ya. Bye.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, kiddos, if only it was always gonna be that easy.
> 
> (*reads the creator's request that everything remain pg-13* *sad noises* sorry I know I'm the worst)


	4. switch up the batteries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang checks out a ghost town.

They drove west again, down into Texas, and decided to go back along the I-10 looking for ghost towns. Instead, they found themselves in utterly empty prairies, with…

“Wind farms? Is that like, a thing, in Texas?” said Arthur.

“Nooooo,” said Vivi. “There are only like, what, a hundred of those wind things there?”

**_It’s definitely a thing in Texas_** , said Lewis. **_Wait. Have you ever been to Texas, Arthur?_**

“Uh, not really?” said Arthur. “Like, I think we drove through it a few times during that first year, but we mostly stuck to the midwest and the northeast of the country. Are there parts of Texas that _aren’t_ prairie? Does anyone live here at all besides whoever’s minding those wind things? Do they even live here? Why is the left lane only for passing? Why are the semis going like 90 miles per hour?”

Vivi laughed, and Lewis made the weird crackly laughing noise, putting a skeleton hand in Arthur’s hair like he used to and ruffling it. Arthur leaned into the touch.

**_Just keep driving. We’ll see Texas cities soon_**.

Arthur felt his face heat up, the affection in Lewis’s voice like a knife to his heart, reminding him of that morning. Maybe it would get easier over time.

“Ooh, can we go to a ghost town?” asked Vivi.

“Just tell me where,” said Arthur.

“Lewis, find us a town.”

Despite everything, Arthur liked it here. It was clear why the place was called big sky country. Arthur felt very small. There was only hills in the distance, everything a little bit less green than he’d imagined, and big puffy clouds, stretching for miles—horizons without buildings were bigger than any he’d ever seen, having been a suburbs kid. It was just the two lanes going each way, separated by a strip of grassy prairie, the occasional sign, and rotting wooden fences alongside the highway. The speed limit was 80, and he set the cruise control and drifted around semis.

They’d apparently go another 80 miles on the I-10 before they hit a town. Nothing could be seen for miles, just the cars around them. Not even a gas station.

Lewis flicked through Vivi’s phone.

**_Hey, let’s check out this one. Vivi, the high school is right across the cemetery. Can you imagine?_ **

“Oh my god, that would have been so _cool_.”

**_Yeah, too bad we only had a boring high school without any dead people. You never would’ve studied anything_**.

“Doesn’t matter, now I’m a paranormal investigator and I just use basic engineering during the day and HTML and CSS for the blog—which I was _not_ taught in high school, if you recall.”

Arthur’d forgotten they’d gone to high school together—high school sweethearts, in fact. He'd missed the way they’d talked to each other and he let the sound of it wash over him now, a relaxing counterpoint to the endlessness of the road in front of him.

“Ghost towns don’t get us paid, though,” said Arthur.

“So… we sleep in the van a couple nights,” said Vivi, shrugging. “We made a lot off the Rhode Island banshee case, I think we’ll be fine for a couple days. Besides, the blog’s getting hits, I think we might get a case soon.”

**_Would get more hits if you told them you were investigating with an actual ghost, I think_**.

“Absolutely not,” said Vivi. “Can’t let them steal you away, sweetheart.”

**_Good. Tell me about the Rhode Island case?_ **

Vivi talked until she was hoarse.

* * *

 

Their poor van rattled its way into the town adjacent to the ghost town they were looking to explore, attracting the attention of everyone around, and then it broke down in the middle of the street.

“God—damn—this—car,” said Arthur, kicking the wheels. Mystery rolled around in the dust, knocking his glasses off once, and Lewis picked him up easily, stuck the glasses back on him, getting dust all over his clothes.

“Language! You’re in _public_ ,” hissed Vivi. “There could be kids around!”

**_Vi, there’s no kids_**.

Vivi shrugged. “It’s the principle of the thing!”

“You got a weird voice,” said the man. “You, big guy. How do you do that?”

Lewis shrugged.

**_Sorry_** , he said. **_I don’t know what you’re talking about_**.

“And why’s your dog got glasses?”

**_‘Cause he can’t see so good_**.

That got a laugh out of the man. “Fair enough.”

Arthur got out his phone, typed, _Lewis, you gotta blink sometimes_ , and handed it to Lewis.

“Lewis, it’s for you.”

Lewis smiled his slow, soft smile, Mystery leaning up to lick at his face. Vivi peered at the phone, and snorted.

**_Right_** , Lewis said, and blinked. **_Thanks. Hey, mister, you wouldn’t happen to know a place where we could drag our van to get it fixed?_**

The man scratched at his chin.

“Believe me, I want your eyesore outta the street, too. Can’t drive around that thing. Could call Ollie over here,” he said, pulling a phone out of his pocket, flicking at the screen a few times. “Here’s the number,” he said, holding it out to Arthur, but Vivi swiped it out of the man’s hand.

“Thank you very much!” she said, and was dialing it in the blink of an eye, dropping the phone back in the man’s hand without a second glance. The man stared at Arthur, and then up to Lewis, who was still holding a content—if panting heavily—Mystery. For an ancient being, with aeons of knowledge, he had a very self-destructive tendency to chase cars, so it was probably for the best.

“Uh, she handles that stuff,” said Arthur. “It’s—well, technically it’s her car.”

The man nodded.

“Make sure she asks Ollie to show her what she’s doing once she gets here. Ollie doesn’t mind explaining a little bit about what’s going on in the car, and those are some awfully long roads you guys are gonna have to travel.”

Ollie turned out to be Olive, a wizened mechanic with her white hair tied up in a bun, and oil all down her overalls, and Arthur and Lewis were relieved of the duty of pretending that they had any idea what was wrong with the car.

“You’ve put a lot into this car, haven’t ya?” she asked.

“Ten years,” said Vivi proudly. “Got it when I was 16.”

Ollie smiled. “Good girl. You took care of this car, now it’ll take care of you.”

“Um, can we get some water for Mystery?” asked Arthur, gesturing at Lewis, who was burying his face in the dog’s fur.

The man nodded.

Lewis set the dog down, and the man went into the store and came out with a little bowl and some treats, which Mystery happily gobbled up. They sat down on the steps, watching Vivi poke around under the hood of her beloved car. Lewis slung an arm around Arthur’s shoulders, pulling him close. Arthur leaned back against Lewis’s shoulder, no one around to look at them.

“Ugh, I’m so tired,” said Arthur, trying to pretend his heart wasn’t pounding in his chest. He focused on Vivi’s blue hair, bright in the afternoon sunlight against the orange of the car.

**_Yeah, me too. Thanks for the reminder earlier_**. Lewis didn’t whisper, exactly, but it was the softest Arthur had ever heard him “speak”.

“What? Oh—that,” said Arthur. “Yeah, no problem.”

**_There’s so much I’ve forgotten_** , said Lewis, and his voice grew softer, more distant. **_I just—I wish I could forget that I’m not… like you guys, any more. I wish I didn’t have to be that thing. I wish it just came naturally to me to be human_**.

“I’m sorry,” said Arthur, throat closing up again. Shit, he didn’t want to think about this.

Mystery came and sat next to him, and Arthur scratched behind his ears, getting dust all over his hands from when Mystery had been rolling around in the dirt. He brushed it off, getting handprints all over his pants, but glad for the distraction.

**_No—Arthur, I didn’t mean it like that—_ **

“It’s my fault, anyway.”

**_Nothing we can do about it now_**.

“Anyway, you do a pretty good job acting normal,” said Arthur, desperate to turn the conversation away from that can of worms. “I’m sure—I’m sure nobody notices.”

**_Could be. But I know it’s not real, y’know?_ **

Arthur swallowed. Lewis made no move to pull away from him, nothing to indicate that he wasn't happy with Arthur pressed against him like this, Arthur’s cheek brushing against Lewis’s illusion hair, as soft as the real thing had been, and yet—

“Maybe, um, don’t,” said Arthur, pushing away.

**_Well… all right_** , said Lewis, sounding confused. **_I’m sorry. I thought you… liked that. I won’t do it again, though_**.

“That’s not the problem,” said Arthur.

Lewis looked at him, tilting his head, with an expression on his face that was so utterly alien that it was almost as though Arthur was looking at someone he didn’t know.

**_I think I’ve forgotten a lot of things_** , said Lewis.

Vivi came up the sidewalk, a grin on her face, and Arthur smiled back up at her, pleased to see her so happy. Her glasses rode up on her face when she grinned and crinkled her nose, one of Arthur’s favorite things about her smile.

She leaned down, giving Lewis a peck on the cheek, and then Arthur,and when the two of them both stared at her in shock, she went to go sit by Lewis.

“What was that for?” asked Arthur.

“Nothing,” said Vivi. “I just like seeing you two together again. I’m still so—it’s still so strange, my heart jumps every time. Ah, but—that’s silly.”

**_Not silly_** , said Lewis, putting his other arm around her. Vivi cleared her throat.

“Anyway, I thought I'd let her do her thing,” said Vivi.

“Learn anything fun?” asked Arthur.

“Not a clue,” said Vivi. “She tried, though. It was very nice of her. I appreciated it. She was cool. I wanna be a little old mechanic lady someday! Helping kids out. Maybe there’s a paranormal investigator equivalent.”

She sighed, and Lewis sighed, too.

“You already do half our equipment repairs,” said Arthur. “Cars are kinda different though.”

“Oh, well, I learned all that from you,” said Vivi, waving her hand.

“Nah, you’re better than me now,” said Arthur. “You're the only one I trust with my arm.”

Vivi snorted, blowing her bangs up, but she smiled at him afterwards.

**_When did she say she’d be done?_** asked Lewis.

“Oh, a little bit from now,” said Vivi. They waited, in the afternoon sun, and helped Ollie shove the car to the side of the road when it took longer than she thought it would and it became apparent that even in this deserted place, cars still needed to get by. Sweaty, and exhausted, they sank back down on the sidewalk, and eventually decided to walk to the nearest motel to get a room for the night. Vivi stood in between them, looping an arm between either of theirs, and they walked down the street like that. When they got back, Ollie had finished the car.

“By the way,” said Vivi, after they all packed into the car and paid Ollie. “Do you have directions to the ghost town? We wanted to check it out—”

Ollie shook her head, wisps of white hair falling around her face.

“It’s not that exciting,” she said. “It’s just a little creepy. All the buildings are boarded up—”

“We just wanted to look through,” said Vivi. “If it’s a little boring, that’s okay.”

Ollie shrugged.

“Actually, let me write it down for you, and here’s my card.”

Vivi handed over her phone, and Ollie smiled.

“You kids and your phones,” she said, handing it back. “Have fun out there, all right? You know where to come if your car breaks down again.”

“Thanks so much!” said Vivi, and they took off down the road.

“I should put her on the blog,” said Vivi, after they’d gone a ways down the road.

“Should've asked,” said Arthur.

“I’ll ask on the way back,” said Vivi. “Not that we have enough internet traffic to send a decent amount of tourism here, but y’know, if they want it…”

As slow as the city had been, when they reached the outskirts of the inhabited parts it became more and more apparent that they were finding the ghost town. Half the buildings were falling apart, and the space between them grew wider and wider. They turned onto an unpaved road, the gravestones of the old cemetery stretching out over the grassy hills before them, and the schoolhouse and a few other buildings lining the other side of the road.

**_We’re here_** , said Lewis, and they got out of the car.

Vivi clasped her hands together with delight, looking up at the schoolhouse.

“Oh, it’s _absolutely_ in awful condition,” she said. “Lewis, I love it!”

_As if Lewis himself had made it for her_ , Arthur thought bitterly, and then caught himself, wondering where that bitterness had come from.

“It looks like it’s going to fall apart on us,” said Arthur. “Don't _breathe_ too hard while we’re in there.”

**_No worries—_ **

Vivi rolled her eyes at him, and then stepped up to the door.

“I saw this in my dreams,” she said. “All these names… So many wishes here.”

“Wishes?”

Vivi turned to him, blank-faced. Her eyes began to burn with that purple light, and her hair began to stand on end, purple static arcing around her. She held her hands in front of her chest, palms out, in an obvious _stop_ sign.

“Oh, shit,” said Arthur, clutching at Lewis’s arm. “Oh, shit, Lewis, get the camera—record her, so we know what she said—”

“Have they come back, yet?” she asked, purple lightning racing around her finger tips, EMF meter going wild in her hands. It sparked with the same purple energy, bright in the waning afternoon sunlight.

Mystery moved toward her, and then back, and then toward her again, looking back anxiously between Vivi and the two of them, nails clacking against the wooden porch at the entrance to the schoolhouse. His hackles were raised, but he didn’t growl or bark.

Lewis fumbled for it, pulling Arthur closer as well. For an illusion, Lewis had surprisingly solid, warm arms, and Arthur felt like he would have left bruises, he was clutching him so tight.

“They _left_ usss… There was a twisting wind, and crushing force, and they left usss… Have they come back, yet?”

**_It’s just echoes_** , murmured Lewis. **_Like me—even the purple energy, it’s like mine…_**

Arthur glanced up at him. Lewis watched Vivi with a burning intensity.

“Have they come back, yet?” asked Vivi, one last time, and then the purple static disappeared and she was back to normal, holding out her hands and looking at them like she didn’t quite understand.

“We got a video,” said Arthur, and even though it was Vivi who’d just had a _literal oracle moment_ , Lewis’s words echoed in his head.

“I remember what I said.”

“Oh, good, well, we’ve got a video anyway if we can’t make sense of it and need to look stuff up later—”

“I know what it meant,” said Vivi. “There was a tornado—that’s what made people move away, it was too hard to rebuild. But there’d been homes here. All of these marks—all of these people, just trying to make it work. This is what’s left.”

Arthur shivered. God, this shit always creeped him the fuck out. The not-ghosts, the places that had developed desperate, angry souls of their own. Demons and ex-humans at least tried to speak a little.

“But now it’s gotta go somewhere—but I don’t know where,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “I couldn’t _see_ —”

Vivi was frozen at the door, EMF meter in hand. Arthur couldn’t figure out why they weren’t moving at first, and then he realized it was because he and Lewis always went in after Vivi.

“I don't know what we’re going into, you guys,” she said, voice strangely high. “I just know it’s big—and we’ve faced big things before, unprepared, and we won—but this half-knowledge? I don’t like it at _all_.”

“We don’t actually… _have_ to go in,” said Arthur, hopefully, even though it had never worked before. “This isn't a case. We can just leave.”

“People visit this place,” said Vivi. “We can’t just leave something like this, if it would hurt someone. C’mon, Arthur. Really?”

“But we can just leave it if it’ll hurt _us_ ,” said Arthur.

**_It's okay_** , said Lewis. **_We’ll go in and take a look, and then we’ll get out and make a plan, all right?_**

The tension in Vivi’s shoulders relaxed, and she ran a hand through her hair.

“Yes. Thank you.”

She pushed open the door, and a cold wind blew out, ruffling Arthur's and Vivi’s hair and clothing.

“You don’t have to be human, if it’s easier for you to let up on the illusion,” said Vivi. “I know it makes you tired.”

**_I prefer to be this way_** , said Lewis.

The schoolroom was dark, and smelled of decades of pigeons making a home here. Arthur shoved the door as wide open as he could make it, letting real sunlight in for what seemed to be the first time in decades. The dirty windows filtered what little light they could let in, and the dust made it nearly impossible to see. A big cellar door on the other side of the room stuck up out of the floor, rusty hinges having kept it open for decades.

Desks were pushed up against one side of the wall, completely covered in cobwebs. Mystery sniffed at them interestedly for a moment, and then backed off.

It was one thing to face a couple of restless spirits in a wide open field. Restless spirits were a dime a dozen, and wide open fields couldn’t come crashing down on his head. Arthur wanted to grab the two of them and run back out. He flexed his metal hand—occasionally, like now, he still got phantom itches in it, worse when he was stressed out or afraid. The metal arm had no feeling, but sometimes he accidentally scratched at it anyway.

Vivi and Arthur shivered, the air turning colder. Lewis flickered, so fast that Arthur wasn’t even sure if he’d only flickered off the illusion of his alive self or flickered out of vision entirely.

The shadows on the floor slowly began to gather together in the corner next to the cellar door, and with a rattle, they disappeared down it, leaving streaks in the dust on the floor where they’d been.

“Okay,” said Arthur. “Guys, we took a look, and, um. We can go now?”

Vivi shook her head, and Arthur and Lewis followed her to the cellar door, Arthur’s steps creaking across the old floors. Lewis’s footsteps made no sound, which was eerie in a different way. (How had he never noticed that in the past few days?)

From what little they could see, rotting steps led down several feet into a tiny cellar—just big enough for a schoolroom full of children to hide in during a tornado. Arthur vaguely remembered that was what they were supposed to do.

“Those steps are definitely not safe,” said Arthur.

“It doesn’t go very far down,” said Vivi, testing her weight on the first one. “Oops!”

Arthur reached out for her when it gave a little, clutching at her hand with both of his. 

“So if we fall, that’d be okay,” Vivi added, regaining her balance. Arthur, reluctantly, let go.

**_I can carry you, if you’d like_**.

“Well, I’m fine,” said Vivi. “But if you wanna carry Arthur—”

“I don’t need to be carried,” snapped Arthur. And then he felt them freeze. “Uh—sorry,” he added. “Um, nerves.”

They made their way down the stairs, which creaked underneath Arthur and Vivi. Lewis hovered behind them, ready to catch either of them if they fell, but Arthur was worried because he flickered several times in the corner of Arthur’s eye.

“Lewis, are you okay?” Arthur asked.

Lewis nodded.

The sound of Arthur's voice had seemed unnatural, the cold of the basement nearly tangible, and Vivi switched on her flashlight. Arthur could still see the fog of his own breath. The three of them scooted closer together, Arthur’s and Vivi’s breath mingling. Lewis gave off heat like a fire. It made Lewis seem more alive.

“Yep, those shadows are definitely moving out of the way of your flashlight,” said Arthur, fear making his arm itch even more.

Vivi linked her fingers with Lewis’s fingers and by itself, Arthur’s hand flexed.

With horror, as he felt his eyes begin to change, Arthur realized that what he'd been reading as the blank fog of fear and phantom limb syndrome all along, _wasn’t_.

_Oh, no_ , thought Arthur. _Not here, not again_ …

He was grateful for the dark, and he turned away from the two of them, as though he was circling so the three of them could cover each others’ backs—but in truth, he was hiding his eyes, sclera going black and irises going an unnatural green.

_I wasn’t jealous, this time!_ He pleaded with the nameless demon that still inhabited him. _I’m happy with the way things are! Just—just leave me alone!_

It was a lie, and the demon knew it, but if Arthur just had time—he just needed _time_ , and then everything could be okay again. If he could keep it under control for now…

Mystery growled.

**_It's okay, boy_** , said Lewis, and out of the corner of the eye, Arthur watched Mystery lick Lewis’s hand.

Mystery circled around until he was facing Arthur. Arthur swallowed, knowing what the dog must have been thinking about.

Something—a long, giant tendril of shadow—waved across the circle of light Vivi’s flashlight made on the wall. Arthur yelped.

And then it swung forward, grabbing Vivi. Arthur jumped after her, and so did Lewis, but it knocked Lewis away as though swatting a fly, and he landed further back, several inches above the floor, hovering. His form flickered between the skeleton and his face, and the telepathic groan he let out sent chills up and down Arthur’s spine—almost as much as Vivi shrieking and clawing at the thing that grabbed her. Torn between running to either of them, Arthur froze.

It picked Lewis up too, a moment later, only leaving Arthur and Mystery.

_Run! Run_ , the demon told him. _She’s as good as dead, and Lewis is already dead anyway—just save yourself. You know_ you _can’t save them, and they’d probably rather die together this time, rather than the way you separated them last time_.

And Arthur—mind-numbingly, mortifyingly terrified, unable to think straight— _did_. He scrambled up the steps, but the thing grabbed him, too, and pulled him back. The basement filled with red light, illuminating all of them and the giant, tentacle monster which clutched at the three of them, and Mystery transformed. It was easy work for the kitsune to snap at the tentacles of the thing in the basement, forcing it to let Vivi go first, then Lewis, and then, in an instant that seemed to take forever, Arthur as well. For a few breathless moments, Arthur rolled to the floor, trying to figure out which way was up. He came face to face with the center of the monster, a terrible, beating white lump in its center, and managed to get his feet on the ground, looking around for Vivi and Lewis. Vivi draped Lewis’s arm around her shoulders, dragging him with her.

They scrambled up the stairs, rolled out of the schoolhouse doors, tripping over their own limbs and each other’s, and Arthur made it to the car first, revving up the engine and almost driving away before Vivi was fully in the car—but he caught himself, just barely in time, though she ended up with a scrape on her knee—and they were off, Arthur flooring it and kicking up dust that could be seen in their rearview mirror even when they were miles away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This just keeps getting longer and longer, doesn't it? I can't believe a total of 28 people have subscribed to this. I don't know who you all are but rest assured that I love you all (and I feel very good about myself lol).
> 
> (Also I worry about how I'm dealing with Arthur's arm? I hope it's not ableist?)


End file.
